"The officer was shocked and had cause to arrest her," writes the unbylined author of The Shields Gazzette's report on the arrest of Louise Richards, alleged boob flasher and assaulter of police.Richards was banned from the area's public parks after reportedly shouting “You fancy me, don’t you” and pinching the right buttock of an officer at North Marine Park in South Shields, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. She was charged with and has admitted sexual touching without consent.

Ann Friedman (41k Twitter followers!) writes on the quixotic, often-futile practice of "personal branding," whereby one tries to intentionally control something that exists only in other people's minds. (more…)

If a food additive is "generally recognized as safe," food manufacturers do not have to disclose its presence. And there's a lot of bullshit allowed when it comes to marketing. Eater looks into "natural beef flavor" and what it really is.As you likely suspect, given that McDonalds French Fries are legendarily "natural beef flavored," it doesn't have to contain any beef at all. But the FDA does regulate it.

Rage Against the Machine's Tim Commerford: "I do apologize for Limp Bizkit. I really do. I feel really bad that we inspired such bullshit."(Rolling Stone)Remember the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000 when Commerford climbed the backdrop and interrupted Limp Bizkit's acceptance speech? Video below.https://youtu.be/0UaGVNx0vG0

In 1954, the National Association for Mental Health first issued the book "How To Recognize and Handle Abnormal People: A Manual for the Police Officer." Included were techniques on dealing with all kinds of "abnormal persons," from psychopaths, drug addicts, and the "mentally retarded" to civil protestors and those involved in family disturbances. A selection of scans is below. And if you're not satisfied, you can purchase a copy of the 1975 edition on Amazon for the low price of $103.(Print via Weird Universe)

Man, the first few paragraphs of this Washington Post story about a mentally ill man who died in a jail while waiting for medical care are so devastating. (more…)

Bill C-51 is a sweeping, radical mass-surveillance bill proposed by the current Canadian Tory government, which will be fighting an election next month. (more…)

My California public school education was filled with romanticized stories of the Spanish Missions. What we were taught was not accurate. The folks already living here were abused and enslaved. It comes as no surprise that people feel a lot of anger over the sainting of Junipero Serra, and that the Carmel Mission, where he is interred, was vandalized. (more…)

The Zeroes' powers aren't quite the sort we're used to seeing in, say, X-Men or Teen Titans. These kids -- all born in the year 2000, and maybe it was something about all those zeroes that made the difference? -- have powers that revolve around the attention, affection, and influence of other people.There's Flicker, born blind, but able to see through other peoples' eyes.There's Crash, an electrosensitive whose agony in the presence of electronic equipment presents a nearly irresistible temptation to lash out with her power to short them out, fuse them, render them inoperable forever.There's Scam, who has a Voice that speaks whatever words will get him what he wants -- even things he couldn't possible know and often promptly forgets (this power began before he even learned to speak, and he acquired speech by listening to himself speak whatever words served to get him what he desired as an infant).Then there's Anon, whom no one can remember as soon as they stop talking to him. Literally snuffed out of their attention -- as if he'd never been there. This is great for sneaking around, not so good for making lasting friendships.Finally, there's Bellwether, whom the others all call "Fearless Leader" (behind his back), who can rally everyone to a cause, weld them into a team, make them more than the sum of their parts. He's ambitious. (more…)

"This is what I'm afraid of right here, 3D printing. Because the Internet destroyed the music industry and now this is what we're afraid of right now with the textile industry. There will come a time where people are making the shoes at home." – Kanye West, speaking about the threat to his shoe business during a visit to the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies in Armenia (more…)

Tentacles made of cubes reach for you from within the watery abyss. "You're not supposed to be here," an unseen being informs you as you descend into the first level of the game Euclidean. Deep sea creatures made of shapes swarm, pulse and strain around you—and soon, they notice you. "Everything here will kill you," the voice intones a few moments later. (more…)

Says the uploader of this superb video, “I built my rabbit a cart and now he delivers me beer! This event marks the release of an epic accomplishment.” (more…)

John Padlo has a huge collection of vintage science fiction toys. He has been working on a giant-size painting of a bunch of his toy ray guns, and is almost finished. Now, he is Kickstarting a 500-piece puzzle of the painting.

A physician at an emergency room in Aomori Prefecture, Japan was so annoyed with a man who showed up at the hospital three times in one night that he socked the patient in the gut. Apparently the fellow kept returning in an ambulance, complaining about different issues, before being examined and sent home.The man reportedly had been taken to the ER by ambulance 18 times this year, and some of the time was "noticeably intoxicated and belligerent with staff," according to Japan Today.The man actually apologized to the doctor who was scolded by management and told that "there should be no violence under any circumstances."

https://youtu.be/OaohPXGZG-sRahat and his buddy are very good at quickly switching places in the driver's seat. They put this unusual talent to good use by driving to fast food places and making the drive-up workers think they are hallucinating.

Interviewed by Chris Roberts in 1988. (Blank on Blank)

We already know that Brinks' computerized safes can be hacked within a minute, but did you know their traditional lockboxes are even easier to get into?YouTuber jcazes provides instructions, complete with all the exhaustive details required to understand Brinks' intricate mechanism.

A seemingly innocuous news segment, about a charity event in a bowling alley, goes awry when Tommy the Tenpin strikes. [KMPH News 26, via r/videos]

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Depending on who you ask, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass could be a masterpiece or a dangerous book that shouldn’t be in the hands of children. The former opinion seems to have won out over the years, and now on the 20th anniversary of its original publication, we’re treated to a delightful graphic novel adaptation.The story is set in a world similar to ours but slightly different, where every person has a personal “daemon”: their soul in the form of an animal. Lyra, a plucky young girl living in Oxford, gets caught up in a globe-trotting adventure after her friend Roger is kidnapped. One of the best aspects of the story is getting to explore Pullman’s expansive fantasy world. The graphic novel really shines at visualizing that world in full color. Illustrator Clement Oubrerie uses a somewhat muted look for most of the book, which helps to place the story in a world outside our own. A couple minor changes have been made to the story, most notably occasionally allowing us to see events that are only referred to in the book. This will likely help new readers understand the story better since it actually clarifies a few things that are vague in the beginning of the book. The book itself comes in both paperback and hardcover editions. I opted for the paperback because it’s about half the price and very sturdy, with a heavy gloss cover with front and back flaps. The quality is good in either edition, so go with whichever feels like a better choice.One thing for fans of the original book to keep in mind is that this “Volume 1” adaptation only covers about one-third of the book. You’ll be done before you know it, but the good news is that Volumes 2 & 3 are planned for 2016 and 2017, respectively. Whether or not the rest of the His Dark Materials series will get the same treatment remains to be seen. As is, this is both a great introduction to the series for newcomers and the perfect opportunity for old fans to revisit a modern classic.– Alex StrineThe Golden Compass: The Graphic Novel Volume 1

Author Jim C Hines is in fine form.

The awards -- whose selection process is a closely guarded secret -- come with $500,000 over five years.Coates is an accomplished writer and thinker, whose long-form work has distilled many of the issues of race in America that have come to the fore in the age of #Ferguson and #Blacklivesmatter. Coates's #1 New York Times 2015 bestselling memoir Between the World and Me is a must-read for anyone trying to get their heads around America's racial politics and history.Coates's 20 co-winners include puppeteer Basil Twist; neuroscientist Beth Stevens; playwright, composer and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda; writer Ben Lerner; sociologist Matthew Desmond; computational biologist John Novembre; and education entrepreneur Patrick Awuah.

The app, Metadata+, was created by Josh Begley, research editor for The Intercept; Begley changed its name from Drones+ after it was rejected as "objectionable" by Apple five times.At the time, an Apple employee told Begley that the app would never be approved if it focused on US drone strikes, but would have a chance if he "broadened his topic" because "there are certain concepts that we decide not to move forward with, and this is one."Metadata+ never the word "drone" -- this may be how it snuck past the Apple censorship board. But seven months later, Apple has unceremoniously yanked it.Apple: a giant corporation that gets to decide which journalism you're allowed to access with apps on your device, and whose lawyers repeatedly told the US government that changing this situation should be a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.Ecosystems work great -- they just fail miserably. The important part of a benevolent dictatorship isn't the "benevolent" -- it's the "dictatorship."

The exiled whistleblower signed up for Twitter today, using @snowden.Twitter turned the three-years-dormant userid over to Snowden, who is operating his own account (which has only one entry to it, to date: "Can you hear me now?").The signup was prompted by Snowden's Snowden's interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson:

Heather shot this spectacular, breakneck footage of Tricksy (random New Mexico desert dog; rescued) asleep on the couch, dreaming of another fine breakfast.

The Atlantic: "On September 11 of this year, the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean reached its annual minimum. 2015’s minimum was the fourth-smallest ever recorded, and it nearly tied with the third-smallest on record. Which makes a certain amount of sense: In the satellite era, the ten worst years for Arctic sea ice have been the last ten.

Ratter offers a brief history of skateboards made of reactions to their ever-increasing popularity from contemporary newspapers.Here's the most stupid/brilliant, from The Evening Independent in Masillon, Ohio, in 1975.

"You think you know what a Lyre looks like."I love the fact that the website dedicated to the world's oldest musical instrument is itself made of the world's oldest HTML. [via Metafilter]

James writes, "A blend of fact and fiction, players take on the role of an NSA agent tracking down the source of the leaks. They'll discover the journalists involved, and the real messages sent by Snowden to them at the time."£5 gets you a play-through. James is seeking money to finish the game, and offers his four years' experience as a dev in support of the proposition that he'll succeed. But as with all crowdfunding, there's no guarantee that you'll get anything for your money -- caveat emptor.

For taking notes, sketches and generally just having paper with me that works well with my fountain pens, I've been using Fabriano's EcoQua notebooks.The dot-ruled, staple bound sheets of 85gsm off-white paper work fantastically with my my favorite pens and inks. There is nearly zero bleed through or feathering, and ink dries fast. My favorite Noodler's bulletproof black and red-black are both bold and bright, though the red-black becomes distinctively more red.I really the dot-ruled paper. It is a more subtle version of quad-ruled graphing paper, but helps me sketch and draw out ideas.There is a lot of marketing hullabaloo over the environmentally friendly nature of these notebooks. I find this ironic, as we start with killing a tree, but appreciate it regardless.Ecoqua Dot Notebook 5.8X8.25 Navy via Amazon

It takes a top-notch MBA and years of training to be able to improvise and enunciate statements like this 2010 gem: "I'm going to really frame our mobile architectural distinction. We've taken two fundamentally different approaches in their causalness. It's a causal difference, not just nuance."No wonder the job creating class is so handsomely compensated.

Who needs the Onion? "Don't know how long it's going to take, but this news that there is flowing water on Mars is somehow going to find its way into a technique to advance the leftist agenda."

Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!https://youtu.be/qXzWlPL_TKw

[embed]https://youtu.be/Mi_HMUhhMMU[/embed]Take flight in fresh air or zip the mini SKEYE Pico Drone through your office in between meetings—we guarantee it’s more fun than a coffee-break. This nimble quadcopter is stealth enough to rest on the tip of your finger, and nimble enough to flip, zip, and dive through tight spaces. Just throw it in the air—literally—and hover your heart out.

Proud papa Francisco Aguilar posted this video of his 11-month-old son, whose budding intelligence was captured perfectly in this short video.

Gabriela writes, "Hopes&Fears starts the week with this roundtable in which we invite four professional skeptics to discuss the ins and outs of busting a hoax. From Ben Radford, deputy editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, to Susan Gerbic, founder of Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia, we discuss the real potential dangers of misinformation and disinformation in the digital age.""It's an especially important conversation in light of the current threat to defund Planned Parenthood after the organization was targeted by a fraudulent anti-choice organization, as well as the resurgence of diseases that have been well under control for the better part of the past century due to the well-fueled -- and well-refuted -- rumor that vaccinations cause autism."As the saying goes, 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.' This is especially true in the age of the Internet, and these experts work diligently to expose the truth."

At the beginning of the summer my son Ronan, age 12, and I built him his first high-powered gaming PC. Me being a dad and all, I did so happily, but with one proviso -- he’d have to dedicate time every day to learning a programming language. He was slightly sceptical of this, having taken a few less-than-interesting intro to programming classes in the past. Prepared for this, I recommended that we enroll him in Youth Digital’s comprehensive Java course called Minecraft Server Desgin 1. This got his full attention, as he had dreams of creating his own custom servers and gameplay modes to host Minecraft sessions with his friends.We signed him up and dove in. Our immediate impression was that site and course are smartly designed and easy to navigate. All material is introduced through clear, well-produced, often funny videos that didn’t talk down him, but instead did a great job of walking him through new concepts, then pausing while he took pop quizzes and did hands-on coding exercises.The course includes a year of server hosting, 24-hour tech support (that was fast and helpful the few times he’s needed it), and perhaps best of all, a browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) for editing the game, player, and team Java files. Within this Codenvy IDE (Windows and OSX only), you can launch the updated server with one button, which makes it fast to test code and correlate newly learned concepts with the “real world” Minecraft results.He chose one of the four pre-built maps, learned to modify the default server file description text, whitelisted a few friend, and launched his Minecraft server within the first hour of instruction. Compared to a typical “Hello World” exercise, I think Ronan was thrilled that the programming was taught so he got results relevant to his interests.By the time he’d been through six lessons, Ronan had learned and was putting into practice fundamental programming concepts such as arrays, conditional statements, and while loops. He was using these to create lists of items that randomly appear in chests, and to place command blocks in his map that power up player health stood upon -- providing their health is below a certain threshold. Somehow, this is much more enticing to him than learning to code arrays of grocery lists as some other courses do…Ronan did become impatient at times with the pace of the videos, wanting to get into the meat of a lesson. He would sometimes skip ahead in the videos, or start to code as soon as he got the gist of the lesson, before instructed. In his own (blunt) words:“The videos were good at explaining the points they needed to make. But they spent too much time bantering around. A lot of the video is usually skippable.”I asked Ronan to say a few words about the course in general:

Zeek the monkey escaped his owner's home in a suburb of Orlando, Florida. Within hours after escaping, he accomplished a lot. He chewed on a neighbor's mail, pulled molding off a police car, and was found rocking back and forth on a street sign.As funny as this headline is, Jesus Christ what is wrong with people that they think it's cool to keep a goddamned monkey as a household pet? Rocking back and forth like that sounds to me like a sign the poor little primate was experiencing stress.What's worse, this is not the first time Zeek has escaped. In 2012, this happened more than once with the same owner and the same captive wild animal. Why is this man still allowed to keep this highly intelligent creature in his home? Because Florida, I guess.He was picked up by the Sanford police and safely transported to his owner, according to the police department's Facebook page:

Thinking of buying an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus? If photographic quality matters to you, check this out first.Camera+ founder Lisa Bettany does her annual "ultimate comparison" post with Apple's latest iPhone, the 6S.

The FBI reports that 700,993 people were arrested for marijuana-related offenses in 2014. More than 88% were for simple possession. This is the first time the number of arrests have increased since 2009. Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics and a supremely hateful racist, would be proud."These numbers refute the myth that nobody actually gets arrested for using marijuana," said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. "It’s hard to imagine why more people were arrested for marijuana possession when fewer people than ever believe it should be a crime. Law enforcement officials should not be wasting their time and resources arresting and prosecuting adults for using marijuana. While law enforcement was busy making nearly three quarters of a million marijuana arrests, more than 35% of murders went unsolved, the clearance rate for rape was less than 40%, and for robbery and property crimes, it was below 30%."There are a lot of reasons why weed arrests are on the rise. It's important to keep weed illegal to support the prison industry, drug testing labs, court-mandated treatment centers, law-enforcement budgets, corrupt officials, and all the other businesses that make money from weed prohibition. It's also a useful way to lock up poor people and minorities without having a legitimate reason. As a conservative estimate, every person who gets arrested for weed probably has to pay at least $1,000 in fines, bonds, treatment, lawyers, etc. $1,000 X 700,993 = 700 million dollars. Then you have to figure each arrest costs at least $1,000 from police department budgets (paid by taxes) and incarceration (paid by taxes). This is real folding money and the people who are enriched by drug prohibition are not going to give up without a fight.

Rightscorp is the notorious publicly traded shakedown outfit that accuses people of online infringement and threatens them with titanic fines and jail time for allegedly listening to music or watching movies the wrong way, offering to make the whole thing go away for a few hundred dollars -- less than a lawyer would charge to advise you on whether to pay up.Rightscorp's investors expect robust returns, and they're not getting them. Under pressure to get those dividends flowing, the company has adopted a terrifying hard-sell script for its telephone extortionists to follow when they get their victims on the phone:

https://youtu.be/8zoLY0HVuIYIf you're stuck in gridlock in Ljubljana, Slovenia, you might be lucky enough to be entertained by a tailgate puppet show from the Mini Teater."It demonstrates a true power of theater as it amuses people when being least amused - stuck in traffic jams," they write.(via Laughing Squid)

I've never watched an opera before, but the new iOS game Magic Flute by Mozart makes me want to.Created by Polish game developer Lablike, Magic Flute is a block-shifting puzzle game that not only features music from the famous Mozart opera, but follows the story of its libretto through cutscenes between levels. While I'm not specifically familiar with the plot of The Magic Flute, here's what I've learned so far by playing the game:

This nifty collapsable lantern has a built-in lithium battery. You can charge it with a USB cable or by turning the crank. The manufacturer says you can also charge your phone in an emergency by turning the crank. It's regularly $19, but you can get it for $11 on Amazon when you use the promo code 4HM7FB68. It's the #1 Best Seller in Outdoor Tabletop Lighting on Amazon.

https://youtu.be/h5h_-tAxGaIHow soon before this shows up in certain Facebook circles as "proof" of guardian angels?

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Many people first encountered the work of the painter Frank Frazetta (1928 - 2010) from his 1960s and 1970s paperback covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure novels and Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Frazetta also painted a lot of covers for fantasy novels that were nearly unreadable. But people bought the books anyway because Frazetta’s art was on the covers.Frazetta is one of the best fantasy illustrators ever. When you think of sword and sorcery – its look and feel – you are thinking of the exotic universe Frazetta created on oil and canvas. He was inspired and influenced by the great book illustrators of the past, such as Howard Pyle, and N.C. Wyeth, but he added his unique style, and a love for fantastic worlds, strange creatures, demonic sorcerers, fighting men, and curvaceous women. The men and women in his paintings usually wear little or no clothing, because Frazetta loved the human body more than anything else, and he was a master at painting it.Testament is a deep-dive tribute to Frazetta, with lots of rare examples of his early work in comic books, as well as paintings from his later career. It is the third book in a series edited by the Fenners (the first is Icon, and the second is Legacy, and they are both excellent).I’ve been a fanatic Frazetta devotee since I was 12 years old and his work has never lost its magic appeal for me. I thought I’d seen everything ever published by Frazetta, but there were quite a few new pieces in Testament. It includes personal essays by illustrators Michael Kaluta, Dave Stevens, Bernie Wrightson, and Bruce Timm – all artists I admire greatly. One of the best parts of the book are the comments about the paintings, including quotes from Frazetta himself. If you are a Frazetta fan or know someone who is, this book is essential.Testament: A Celebration of the Life and Art of Frank Frazetta

Peter Egan has written a wonderful tribute to my favorite motorcycle of all time, the legendary BMW R90s.The R90s was a hail mary play by BMW. Having realized that their stoic, stolid, black-mit-white motorcycles were boring the shit out of everyone who rode them, BMW decided to build a super bike. What the world got was sheer poetry, the R90s is one of the most beautiful mechanical devices of all time.

John Mogan, 28, and Ashley Duboe, 24, were arrested in connection with an Ohio bank robbery after Mogan posted a series of photos of himself playing with a thick wad of cash. In one photo, he pretends the money is a phone. In another photo, he is biting the money.The Smoking Gun has more:

Twenty years ago, Texas Instruments released the TI-83 graphing calculator, a stupidly expensive piece of old technology that most high schools still require their juniors and seniors buy for around $100. Why? Because. That's why. From Mic.com:

An elementary school in the pleasantly named town of Sicklerville, New Jersey suspended an 8-year-old girl for the crime of wearing a kelly green polo shirt. According to AP, "Winslow Township School's code on dress and grooming says 'school attire can influence a pupil's behavior and potentially impact the academic environment.'" School clothing must be white, dark green or navy.Image: Screengrab from Fox 59